Posted on 11/18/2001 1:30:37 PM PST by It'salmosttolate
Bush Insisted Only He Should Decide Who Should Stand Trial Before Military Court
NEW YORK, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- After he signed an order allowing the use of military tribunals in terrorist cases, President George W. Bush insisted he alone should decide who goes before such a military court, his aides tell Newsweek. The tribunal document gives the government the power to try, sentence -- and even execute -- suspected foreign terrorists in secrecy, under special rules that would deny them constitutional rights and allow no chance to appeal.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20011118/HSSA005 ) Bush's powers to form a military court came from a secret legal memorandum, which the U.S. Justice Department began drafting in the days after Sept. 11, Newsweek has learned. The memo allows Bush to invoke his broad wartime powers, since the U.S., they concluded, was in a state of "armed conflict." Bush used the memo as the legal basis for his order to bomb Afghanistan. Weeks later, the lawyers concluded that Bush would use his expanded powers to form a military court for captured terrorists. Officials envision holding the trials on aircraft carriers or desert islands, report Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff and Contributing Editor Stuart Taylor Jr. in the November 26 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, November 19).
The idea for a secret military tribunal was first presented by William Barr, a Justice Department lawyer -- and later attorney general -- under the first President Bush, as a way to handle the terrorists responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The idea didn't take back then. But Barr floated it to top White House officials in the days after Sept. 11 and this time he found allies, Newsweek reports. Barr's inspiration came when he walked by a plaque outside his office commemorating the trial of Nazi saboteurs captured during World War II. The men were tried and most were executed in secret by a special military tribunal.
Careful...we wouldn't want to be accused of dafaming our great leader in this time of crisis.
Sorry. I'll just let him say it himself :-) -----
"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..."
--Washington, DC, Dec 18, 2000, during his first trip to Washington as President-Elect
WRONG!What they do is often "moderated" so we never REALLY know.
This POTUS is commanding; & I suppose after eight years of what we've just been through?
It's just such a damned unusual sight, for some people.
...other than that, I looked *who* wrote this & considered the source.
G'nite everyone...
The tribunal itself is not a big deal, the way he went about it is.
This has nothing to do with US citizens. Therefore, there are no Constitutional safeguards that are being violated.
There have been lots of reasons in the last 75 years to fear for the loss of Constitutional rights. This just doesn't happen to be one of them.
Should not the Libs & Demos be cheering and saying he must have contacted the spirit of FDR for guidance the same as Hitlery did with Eleanor?
KS_Goat_Roper
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ter·ror·ism [térr rìzzm ]noun
political violence: violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, carried out for political purposes
I agree with your point, but you are stretching the definition of terrorism. Perhaps a better analogy than traffic speeders is illegal aliens.
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